


The Kind You Walk Away From

by perlaret



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: First Time, Kissing, M/M, Pre-Break Up, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-17 15:46:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14192388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perlaret/pseuds/perlaret
Summary: In the morning, Ben will leave for good. It's not something he wants to talk about.





	The Kind You Walk Away From

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liviay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liviay/gifts).



> For the prompt, "I'd like to read a story where Ben loses his virginity to Poe right before he leaves for Luke's Jedi school. Extra points if it is romantic and sad, and with a lot of kissing."

Poe whistles long and low as he steps through the doorway.

“Well, it’s bigger than my place, but that’s about all that’s going for it,” he says, surveying the cramped motel room. He turns and smiles anyway, spreading a welcoming arm. “The perfect space for second thoughts.”

“It’s fine,” Ben says, moving past him so the door can shut. It’s not Hosnian Prime’s best by any stretch of the imagination, with dingy, yellowing wallpaper and a carpet worn threadbare in the most trafficked places. At least there’s a window; light filters in despite the late hour, the night life outside keeping everything flickering with bright neon hues. He’d rather be here than anywhere else. Of that much, Ben is sure.

There aren’t many options for things to do in a room like this one, but he still looks everywhere. There’s a bed and a lone chair for seating, and a side door that, upon closer inspection, hides a toilet and a stand up fresher. When Ben turns back to the main room, Poe is watching him with amusement, already seated on the edge of the bed. It was advertised as big enough for two, and in reality that’s technically true, so long as the beings in question have no qualms about personal space.

“Sure about that?” Poe asks conversationally. He crosses one leg over a knee and begins unlacing a boot.

Ben wills himself not to flush. “I’m the one who suggested we come here,” he points out.

“I remember,” Poe says warmly. He discards one boot with a decisive tug, and then with some rearranging, starts in on the other. Poe cants his head and Ben can detect the mischievous glint in his eyes before he even opens his damn mouth. “You were a little scarce on the details though. Got something in mind for the rest of night?”

Ben gives him a look that is designed to discourage further teasing, but it only makes Poe grin wider. “You know why we’re here,” he says.

Poe shrugs, lethargic, and – with the second shoe cast aside – he lounges back on his elbows. Ben has known Poe long enough to recognize when he’s trying too hard. It somehow still manages to be effective.

“I have an idea,” Poe says. “Help a guy out.”

On a normal day, this is the point where Ben really would have second thoughts. But Poe has no idea that this isn’t a normal day, not yet. That makes it easier.

It gets even easier when Ben’s indecision lingers a moment too long, because Poe’s eyebrows inch toward his hairline and he pushes himself back upright. “Or I mean, I can head back out,” he says, jerking a thumb toward the door, “if you just want to get some sleep–”

“Shut up,” Ben interrupts, but it works, spurring him into movement. He crosses the two, maybe three steps that separate them, and he slides a knee onto the mattress beside Poe, pressing a hand against his chest to stop him from getting any more stupid ideas. Poe bites his lip, clearly pleased with himself. The movement draws Ben’s eyes like a magnet, like it always does.

“I can stay. That works too.” Poe walks his fingers over Ben’s wrist before settling around it, his grip loose but solid, a thumb wandering over his pulse point. Ben's heart bounds faster, too obvious, beneath his touch. “We don’t get to see each other much, if you know what I mean?”

It’s meant to be a light comment, but Ben’s stomach drops under the weight of its landing. He does know, too well.

Something must show on his face that gives Poe pause, because he tilts his head and gives Ben’s wrist a slight squeeze. “Ben, what’s up?”

He radiates sudden, intent concern, and it’s too much. Ben averts his eyes instinctively, pressing his lips together as if that could hold back the acid suddenly climbing up his throat and loading his tongue with all of the things he doesn’t want to talk about or acknowledge, and tries to swallow it down. He’s been steadily ignoring it, fighting it back, ever since the last explosive yelling match that filled his morning, and the afternoon that followed when, each of their tempers spent, Ben’s mother had stepped over the glass trinkets that had broken of their own accord in the tempest and gathered his hands in hers and promised him that going with Luke, that going away, would fix everything.

Poe repeats his name, and Ben forces first his chin up – a brave face, like he’s always been taught – and then his gaze back to the man beside him.

“Later,” Ben says, because he knows that once he breaks the news, this will shatter too.

Desperation makes an adequate counterfeit for bravery, so Ben lets it drive him, and he leans in to catch Poe in a decisive kiss. Surprise delays Poe’s response for only a moment, and then he accepts Ben’s answer for what it is, opening his mouth hungrily to Ben’s.

Kissing Poe is like falling into some harmony Ben doesn’t know the words to, but the tune of it always draws him in, making his pulse sing and his thoughts fade into rare white noise. It's a welcome counterpoint to the otherwise discordant, lonely notes of his life. Poe gentles the initial, hurried unsteadiness of Ben’s attentions, bracing a hand against his shoulder, then smoothing it up toward the crook of his neck. His thumb lingers at the edge of Ben’s collar, sweeping a short line back and forth against the skin there.

Ben closes the distance between them, dragging Poe in by the waist. They’d snuck many moments together like this, Ben slipping into the Naval Academy dorms when Poe was reasonably confident his roommates would be out, or finding various other hidey holes where they could pass at least temporarily undisturbed – the trials inherent in neither of them properly having a place to call their own. This was different, Ben thought distantly, cupping the back of Poe’s head. His curls are shorter than normal, a fresh cut, but Ben still relishes the feel of it. He wishes suddenly, violently, that they had taken time like this sooner, before it had already run out.

Perhaps sensing his momentary distraction, Poe pauses to nuzzle at Ben’s cheek, the corner of his mouth tipping upward. “So are we going to get comfortable or what?”

It’s playful and earnest and directly at odds with the lurching ache in Ben’s chest. It’s all he can do to swallow hard and force out, “Now or never.”

Poe takes it for nerves and tweaks his ear, then shifts to bite it. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

Ben squeezes his eyes shut tight, exhaling a shaky breath. Poe shoves at his shoulder and Ben follows his lead, kicking his shoes off and sliding back toward the pillows with a dozen stalled confessions still clamoring in his throat. He settles and looks up just in time for Poe to sidle up and, a hand over Ben’s rapidly beating heart, swing a leg over to straddle him – as natural as can be, save for the way his cheeks show red. Poe plucks at the fabric of Ben’s shirt.

“We could get rid of this too,” he suggests, like it’s the infinitely obvious next step.

And, Ben realizes, it _is_ obvious. The notion is suddenly easy, if selfish, but Ben can’t muster the wherewithal to care, because his future is laid out for him and if this isn’t in it, he still wants it. He wants Poe and his smiles, his lingering kisses, and the sounds Poe makes when Ben drags his nails over his scalp and down his back, and everything else that comes in their wake. Ben wants to lose himself in it, never mind the consequences, and if it’s something to regret later and least he won’t be missing something he never had. And, after all, what would one more broken thing be amidst all the other things he was so good at ruining?

Doubt immediately rears its ugly, familiar head, but Ben shoves it aside – there will be endless opportunity for that later.

“Yeah,” Ben finally says, quick, like he’s just broken free of deep water and caught his first fresh breath of air. “Get rid of it.”

They maneuver with that end in mind, Poe’s knuckles skipping over the planes of Ben’s stomach. Ben casts the fabric aside as soon as it’s free and clear of his head and Poe is right there, burying his fingers in Ben’s hair and following him back down toward the mattress. The kiss deepens again, Poe biting at Ben’s lip, and chasing that with his tongue. Ben rucks up the back of Poe’s shirt, seeking skin, to bare everything and yet nothing else at the same time.

It devolves from there, Poe laughing as they roll awkwardly on the narrower-than-expected bed and shimmy off pants and underthings – his eyes shine, richly brown this close, before fluttering shut when Ben settles over him just so. It stirs something fierce in Ben, both deeply possessive and wholly elated, and it crests, trembling outward through his limbs like liquid electricity. Restless with the energy of it, he slides his fingers over the flat of Poe’s hip, around the curve of his thigh. Poe makes a breathless sound with it, shifting into Ben’s touch. When he reaches his destination, Poe is already hard beneath Ben's palm. He squeezes, and Poe curses, breathless and aroused.

He doesn’t need training, nor the minutiae of the Force, to comprehend Poe – the fragments and atoms that make him up, the boundless life and drive and idealism and vigorous hunger for every ounce of more there is. Ben feels self-consciously inept in the face of it, and always has, never quite able to touch that pure, gold-plated certainty he carries at his core.

Perhaps touching Poe like this will be enough. Ben supposes it will have to be. It’s a lonely thought, but he has those in spades already.

Poe pulls him closer, oblivious and dear, his body finding a cadence against Ben’s, pulling him away from his thoughts. “Hey,” he says, close to Ben’s ear. “You with me?”

“I’m here,” Ben says, closing the distance again, and still the gulf between them widens, even when Poe's tongue licks into his mouth and sends electricity down Ben's spine.

Poe grabs at Ben's hips and urges him forward, and the rough friction of their cocks together is implacably good, sending further sparks and flares through him until it Ben feels like he might catch fire, and all of his anger and loneliness might finally burn away for good. Poe's hands slide around him, grabbing at Ben's ass, his nails biting into his skin.

"Did you bring–?" he gasps, hips cresting and falling against the mattress. Ben follows his movements, grinding them together again.

"Yeah," Ben says, and reaches, and thank the Force, with just a thought what he needed was in his hand.

Poe bites his lip against a grin, sharp edged and challenging, but his words are at odds with the urgency his body carries. "I want you here," he says, voice turned rusty with anticipation. "With me, now."

Perhaps, Ben thinks, he can pretend that now will ever be enough.

 

-

 

“Hey,” Poe says after, lazy and splayed comfortably over the ratty sheets, one arm draped over Ben’s midsection. “That thing from earlier…?”

Ben considers it, telling Poe the truth – that tomorrow he’ll board the family ship and fly lightyears away and go learn to be a Jedi so he can grow up, stop ruining things – and who knows when he will be back. He imagines the way Poe’s face will fall as understanding sets in, all drowsiness forgotten, and then the hurt and betrayal would set in. ‘Was this goodbye?’ Ben imagines Poe asking, his voice hoarse with shock.

Ben hates the idea of a prolonged farewell, of tears shed over an already set course. Why should he cling to what he couldn’t change? Dwelling, he thinks, will only make it hurt worse in the end.

“Nothing,” Ben says, reaching up to squeeze Poe’s wrist, some semblance of reassurance. “I was being dumb.”

Poe snickers into Ben’s shoulder and drops a kiss over the many freckles that spot his skin, and then he ruins it immediately by replying: “So no different than usual, huh?”

“Shut up,” Ben grumbles, but softer than before, and Poe’s chuckle vibrates through him, intimate and warm.

No, Ben decides, rolling to his side. Poe’s arm shifts to a more comfortable angle, grazing over the knobs of his spine. He won’t miss this in the morning.

But for now, the morning can wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I'd love to know what you thought of it!
> 
> This was written for the [2018 KnightPilot Exchange](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/kpexchange2018/works). Check out the other fanfic and fanart too!


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